By Susan Morgan Daily News Reporter, Anchorage Daily News

http://www.adn.com/lifestyles/story/0,2649,185739,00.html


LENS MATES

PHOTOGRAPHERS SEE EYE TO EYE WITH EACH OTHER AND THEIR WILDLIFE SUBJECTS

By Susan Morgan Daily News Reporter

(Published August 13, 2000)

Dorothy Keeler doesn't see the wolf walking toward her. A photograph shows her sitting cross-legged alongside a gravel road in Denali National Park. She is in profile, gazing off into the wooded distance; the wolf stands just feet away, gazing at her.

Down the road with the camera, Keeler's husband Leo uses all his psychic ability to "tell" Dorothy to turn around. Meanwhile, he continues snapping pictures.

In the moment that Dorothy describes as the high point of her 12 years as a wildlife photographer, she pivots to face the wolf. Apparently unaffected by her presence, neither attracted nor fearful, the wolf pauses, then ambles within five feet of her to retrieve a road-killed squirrel. Moving off into nearby brush, it begins to eat.

"I could hear him crunching the bones," Dorothy recalls.

While she admits the sound was unnerving, she felt no fear being eye to eye with a wild wolf. "I can't tell you what that feels like. Even to this day ... it was such a thrill."

The photography business Leo and Dorothy have built over the past decade thrives on such encounters: when a wild wolf walked past them with her litter of pups, when a bear and a wolf tussled over a moose carcass, when a fox kit first ventured away from its mother.

Together, the self-taught pair sell enough photos to generate a "low six-figure" gross income. Leo does what he calls the fun part of the job, arranging trips and figuring out what animals will be where. Dorothy works full time marketing and distributing their photos.

The payoff for both is the chance to get up close and personal with animals like Dorothy's wolf.

"This doesn't happen anywhere else on the planet," she says.

LIFE OF VALUE

In their living room on a recent afternoon, amid pelts and mounted heads from animals Leo has hunted over the years, Dorothy, 48, begins to talk about her family. Unbidden, her husband leaves a nearby chair and sits at her feet. She fidgets for a moment, finally leaving her own chair to snuggle beside him on the floor. Thus fortified, she begins the tale of her unhappily married parents and her vow to not repeat their mistakes.

It seems to have worked. Ten years after their wedding, 12 years after meeting through her personals ad, Dorothy and Leo, 50, seem thoroughly and compatibly paired.

Preparing to read a copy of the ad that brought Leo to her -- she keeps it in a scrapbook devoted to their relationship -- Dorothy grabs a box of Kleenex. Before she's much past "high-energy entrepreneur," it's already in use.

Further on, she reads, "I love cats, Ayn Rand, setting and working toward goals, creating a life of value." She looks at Leo. "And we have," she says.

Not that they have a lot in common. Dorothy, who obviously cries easily, calls Leo "Mr. Spock," referring to the emotionless Vulcan from the "Star Trek" series.

She grew up a "spoiled little rich kid" while Leo, when he was about 9, was given three shells and told to come back with two rabbits for dinner. He did. Leo dislikes it when people attach human characteristics to animals; she weeps at "Bambi." Leo tends to look at the big picture; Dorothy sees "the needle on the tree."

But it works.

"I am just so grateful I met this man," Dorothy says. "We balance each other beautifully."

JUST WAIT

It's good they get along, because they're together constantly. Leo, who has kept his day job with the U.S. Forest Service, already had a video business when he met Dorothy and she began working with him. With love came a new career for her, and now photography is her passion as well.

The pair spend seemingly every spare moment stalking images, most often in Denali. Both shoot, often simultaneously, sometimes seeming unsure which of them took a particular photo.

They recently decided to limit their sales to wholesale, custom and Internet venues, but for years they attended fairs and bazaars, selling prints one by one.

Some, like the extreme closeup of an eagle taken through a car window in Homer, have been best sellers. With what they call the "Mona Lisa effect," the eagle's eyes follow the viewer around the room. The background is soft and uncluttered, the feathers so distinct that every tuft is visible.

"This is technically perfect," Leo says.

On their Web site, www.awimages.com, the couple sell stock photos and screen savers as part of "Wilderness Inspirations," housed in the basement of their Turnagain home. Here's an up-the-snout shot of a roaring grizzly, a puffin with narrow, outstretched wings, a bull moose lifting its head from a lake, dripping shimmering streams of water.

Their "Babies of the Wilderness" screen saver shows they can do cute, too. A baby Dall sheep standing atop its mom. Goslings, wolf pups, even an implausibly adorable grizzly cub.

Dorothy says a new airline recently approached them about using their business's eagle logo as its own. They have prints in gift shops from Yellowstone to the Smithsonian Museum and plan to release a children's book this November.

It's a varied career that they hope eventually will allow them to travel and devote even more time to their work.

"If you wait long enough, you will find something worth taking a picture of," Leo says. "Just wait."

RIGHT PLACE, RIGHT TIME

Patience is crucial, according to amateur wildlife photographer Tom Arnot. You're trying to put "yourself in the right place for a good length of time. You might sit there and watch for an hour or a day and (still) not get the shot you need."

It helps if you have what Dorothy calls "wolf karma." That's whatever mojo it is that makes a wild wolf walk right up to the couple, not for food but simply because it doesn't perceive them as a threat.

This year, for example, every time the Keelers have visited Denali, they've seen the wolves.

"The wolves instinctively know we're there in peace," Dorothy believes. "We mean them no harm. We just want to get to know them and share what we learn."

Fellow photographer David Ford has had similar experiences, claiming a grizzly once sat just feet away from him to watch a sunset. He credits a "nonverbal communication" that good wildlife photographers develop with their subjects.

"I admire what they're doing," he says of the Keelers. He believes their photos show a "reverence for life."

CRITICS

But they've had their share of opponents. Leo's appointment to the Board of Game by Gov. Tony Knowles was killed by a vote of the Legislative in March. He had been painted by some critics as anti-hunting.

Most controversial is the Keelers' belief that a "buffer zone" needs to be established around Denali National Park to protect wandering wolves. In a 1999 CBS News special, reporter John Blackstone interviewed more vulnerable to trappers outside the park because the wolves have become habituated to humans inside the park.

But Gordon Olson of the National Park Service told the reporter that 6 million acres are already protected. "How many more acres do you need?" he said.

Leo disputes Olson's estimate and says the number of acres doesn't matter because the two wolf packs he feels are in jeopardy often leave the park to hunt.

EVERYTHING IS SPECIAL

After decades of framing amazing things through the lens of his camera, Leo saw one of the most unusual just weeks ago in Denali.

He was watching a golden eagle flying erratically around its nest as though trying to defend it. Minutes later, a grizzly bear appeared right below the eagle. Over the next few minutes, the eagle dove at the bear and at one point even landed on it, the eagle's talons in the bear's back and the bear swiping at the bird.

While that was extraordinary, Leo says, nature is always amazing.

"To me, everything is significant. Everything is special."

The Keelers feel they're privileged to witness such things. And they're proud to share them with others. They believe their beloved wolves and other wildlife will ultimately benefit.

"You don't fall in love with things you don't see," Dorothy says. "And you certainly won't lift a finger for something you have no experience with."